On 10/1/07 11:24 AM, in article ,
"Bill R" wrote:

Cheryl Isaak wrote:

While I like shows that are tours of private or public gardens, the only
show I've seen recently (that might even go back a year or more) that is
truly a gardening show is Gardening By the Yard. And he cheers me up most
days.

Cheryl


Gardening By The Yard is a show that I record every week (just the new
episodes). For those of you that don't know GBTY is on HGTV and the new
programs are on Saturday at noon (EDT) and they show some of the older
episodes on Sunday.
I generally like Paul James (really liked his cooking show too). He's down
to earth and you feel like he must do most of his own work.

C

On 10/1/07 2:33 PM, in article ,
"enigma" wrote:

Cheryl Isaak wrote in
:

On 9/30/07 10:28 PM, in article
, "Ann"
wrote:

Cheryl Isaak expounded:

I liked Roger Swain (btw, have you read his books?) but
some his co-hosts were the pits. Crockett was pretty darn
good and a hard act to follow.

I've read his books, read his articles in People, Places
and Plants, watched him on the same named show, and walked
through the Boston flower show with him not once, but
twice! He's a wonderful guy, his wife is lovely, and I
feel very priviledged to have spent time really talking
gardening with him on several occasions.

I've wanted to meet him, never get to be at the garden
shows when he is.

try the Hillsborough County Fair. he & his wife also hang out
there & are very happy to talk gardening/farming. Tom was
compairing beards with Roger...

lee
I can try!

Cheryl
PS - next Tuesday to meet?

On 10/2/07 10:28 AM, in article IAsMi.4084$PV1.4022@trndny08, "Seahag"
wrote:


"Cheryl Isaak" wrote:

BTW - I googled Hot Fuzz. Another case of the BBC
exporting their worst bits
of TV and the US lapping it up?

I died laughing at that...it was perfect for my mood that
night

Seahag



You're most welcome! The BBC does some great TV and some truly horrid stuff.
For some reason the worse it is, the more the "cognesti" lap it up!

C

On 10/2/07 10:40 AM, in article
, "Dan"
wrote:

Bill R wrote in
:

Has anyone been watching PBS's Victory Garden this season?
Everyone from last season except Kip (the gardner) is gone. The
new hosts are just horrible. The programs seem to be all over the
place and most of them have not been worth watching. There was
one where the host spent almost the entire post bending metal for
a potting design. What a waste!

PBS had a great program in the Victory Garden but, IMO they ruined
it. They need to go back to the good old days when they had great
hosts and spent their time on interesting gardening subjects.

I used to be a staunch viewer of The Victory Garden. However, it got
so far from it's original intent that I quit watching most of the
episodes. It was good, even for the most part with Roger Swain
hosting it, but during his rein, the show went from having useful
gardening information to showing the "great gardens" of the world
with Peter what's his name and Adrian Bloom. What in the wide, wide,
world of sports did any of that have to do with how to raise a garden
and benefit from eating what you grew?

Then there was 'Chef Marion'. Her food must have been the blandest
food in the world. I wonder if she even knew what seasonings were
used for. I wouldn't want her cooking for me, that is for sure. Then
she had to go to Europe to watch the chefs over there. Again, I
wondered what that had to do with gardening.

When Mikey took over, I thought that maybe he would bring VG back to
some of it's former glory, but he proved me wrong. Maybe what PBS
should do is to just put The Victory garden out of it's misery and
get on with some other type of program.

That is just my opinion, and as usual, your mileage may vary.

Good growing,

Dan Harriman
Orange, Texas
I think I agree, just end it, put it and us out of our misery.

Marion cooked in a very traditional New England style - bland!


I didn't mind the travel sections as long as they were short (about 5-6
minutes) or it was the dead of winter. I'd have loved to see a show on plant
collecting.


Cheryl

Cheryl Isaak wrote in
:

PS - next Tuesday to meet?

i think so...
lee

On 10/2/07 12:30 PM, in article
, "enigma"
wrote:

Cheryl Isaak wrote in
:

PS - next Tuesday to meet?

i think so...
lee
We'll talk off line about where.

I have some trees for you and a daylily or three!
Cheryl

Cheryl Isaak wrote in
:

On 10/2/07 12:30 PM, in article
, "enigma"
wrote:

Cheryl Isaak wrote in
:

PS - next Tuesday to meet?

i think so...
lee
We'll talk off line about where.

I have some trees for you and a daylily or three!

not orange daylilies?!
i have some ditch lilies if you want some...
funny story: a friend of ours is having his farm landscaped
by some big fancy company. he was showing me the plan to see
what i thought. i told him 2 things, no, you do NOT want to
plant a blue spruce right at the corner of the house
(seriously, it was 3 feet from the foundation in the plan),
and you don't have to *buy* the great swathes of ditch lilies
(est price on the plan was $350 for regular orange ditch
lilies) because i'll *give* you all the stupid damn lilies you
want. FREE!

i have a lot of perennial phlox (the tall kind that blooms
all summer) in my shade garden. would it be happier somewhere
sunnier or should i just leave it alone?
and if i have to cut back hard a lilac, is that best done
right after bloom? this thing is 15' tall with 5-6" diameter
trunks. i want it a bit shorter... like no more than 8'.
lee

On 10/2/07 1:31 PM, in article ,
"enigma" wrote:

Cheryl Isaak wrote in
:

On 10/2/07 12:30 PM, in article
, "enigma"
wrote:

Cheryl Isaak wrote in
:

PS - next Tuesday to meet?

i think so...
lee
We'll talk off line about where.

I have some trees for you and a daylily or three!

not orange daylilies?!
Red - any other colors you want?
i have some ditch lilies if you want some...
funny story: a friend of ours is having his farm landscaped
by some big fancy company. he was showing me the plan to see
what i thought. i told him 2 things, no, you do NOT want to
plant a blue spruce right at the corner of the house
(seriously, it was 3 feet from the foundation in the plan),
and you don't have to *buy* the great swathes of ditch lilies
(est price on the plan was $350 for regular orange ditch
lilies) because i'll *give* you all the stupid damn lilies you
want. FREE!


I have PLENTLY of orange daylilies and the double ones too
i have a lot of perennial phlox (the tall kind that blooms
all summer) in my shade garden. would it be happier somewhere
sunnier or should i just leave it alone?
and if i have to cut back hard a lilac, is that best done
right after bloom? this thing is 15' tall with 5-6" diameter
trunks. i want it a bit shorter... like no more than 8'.
lee

Ask some one else the lilac question, I just let mine do its thing. Move the
phlox.
C

enigma expounded:

and if i have to cut back hard a lilac, is that best done
right after bloom? this thing is 15' tall with 5-6" diameter
trunks. i want it a bit shorter... like no more than 8'.
lee

Yes, wait til it blooms next spring. One caution, is it sending up
any suckers from the roots?
--
Ann, gardening in Zone 6a
South of Boston, Massachusetts
e-mail address is not checked
******************************

"Cheryl Isaak" wrote in message
...
PBS had a great program in the Victory Garden but, IMO they ruined
it. They need to go back to the good old days when they had great
hosts and spent their time on interesting gardening subjects.

Then there was 'Chef Marion'. Her food must have been the blandest
food in the world. I wonder if she even knew what seasonings were
used for. I wouldn't want her cooking for me, that is for sure. Then
she had to go to Europe to watch the chefs over there. Again, I
wondered what that had to do with gardening.

I believe Russ Morash was the original producer of Victory Garden. Its
concept was based on the Victory Gardens grown in back yards and any patch
of unused ground during the war when food was scares and rationed......good
concept, great original hosts, wonderful show. I never missed it and give a
huge amount of credit to that show for starting my passion for gardening,
edible as well as ornamental. Roger Swain did most of his segments from his
own personal garden, I liked him too. Russ Morash also came up with the
concept for This Old House when he started personal documentation of the
restoration of his own farm house and many people would come around asking
him how and why questions. He was also the producer of the original Julia
Child series on PBS.

Where did Marion come from? She was Russ's wife and a Julia Child wannabe.
Go figure! During her tenure as "Chef Marion" it was well known that she
wasn't the most beloved person on staff. IMO her cooking sucked (possibly
the same method used to get herself the 'chef' slot) but that aside, there
were some serious "diva issues" going on behind the scenes. But, how do you
tell the producer his wife is a major PITA? My own, very personal take on
the 'foreign travel' was that dear Marion whined incessantly enough about
exotic vacations and since PBS had "hosts" and not "stars" and the pay
wasn't on the commercial TV scale of today good ol' Russ figured out a way
to get the old crone these 'working vacations' paid for by the studio
budget.......there is no hard and fast basis for this conjecture, just my
personal opinion.

About the time all the "visiting this lovely garden" segments started
appearing with that droning, boring old codger the original hosts were
either leaving for the great compost heap in the sky or just plain jumping
ship.......why the hell would I care how they grew frikken palm trees on
some remote tropical island or managed to heat a 4,000 square foot green
house full of 'collected from extensive world travels' specimen plants,
tended by 3 full time gardeners on some bazillion acre historical
estate.....and Chef Marion giving her stupefying blathered commentary while
was standing behind some person in Guatemala making wild boor and banana
flambé casserole.....I stopped watching Victory Garden.

This Old House morphed into the "Norm can build it with more of those damned
biscuits" show, and you too can take a decaying heap of rubble and make a
lovely historical house for only who knows how many dollars of donated
materials and labor if you can supplement this with a $3 million dollar
second mortgage.

Watching Ground Force was more entertaining than informative, but I usually
did enjoy it and got a few good ideas from time to time. When Titchmarsh
left Charlie and Tommy were hard pressed to keep it afloat. When Ground
Force came to America it really went down the drain. So much for one more
garden schlock program to *not* take up time on a Saturday morning.

FoodTV has gone the same route. Apparently the majority of television
production powers that be feel the public needs more entertainment (and I
use the word loosely) than education and more "personalities" than experts
in whatever particular area. Perhaps I am of the old school and have gone
back to my honed skills of reading for research as learned long ago in
school when you actually had to do such a thing to find an answer. In 30+
years I have amassed a rather large, impressive personal collection of BOOKS
(*gasp*, what a concept, replace reading for the remote) on these subjects
for personal reference and take extensive advantage of the massive amounts
of information available on the internet to garner gardening and culinary
skills and knowledge. I'm also a regular patron of the library, sadly for
the masses; seemingly used less than ever. Happily, for me, there's seldom a
line at the check out desk.

The other thing that always leaves me amazed (but no longer surprised) are
the many simply common and/or commonly simple questions asked of this group
that can be answered by a 2 minute or less search on the internet or, heaven
forbid, a trip to the public library. How in the world do these people
manage to find and post to a newsgroup but can't figure out how to use a
search engine? Granted, discussions and exchanges of ideas and information
between peers and mentors is a wonderful thing indeed, but when somebody
asks what grows in their area because they are going to start a landscape
business; or what can grow in my backyard, but never give the slightest clue
as to their location are only a few of many posts that just make me shake my
head and think........."Ohferchrissakes, these people are breeding and we
let them VOTE too?"

And that, boys and girls, concludes the Tuesday afternoon mull and rant
program on wreck.gardens.........

Val

"Val" wrote in message
...

The other thing that always leaves me amazed (but no longer surprised) are
the many simply common and/or commonly simple questions asked of this
group that can be answered by a 2 minute or less search on the internet
or, heaven forbid, a trip to the public library. How in the world do these
people manage to find and post to a newsgroup but can't figure out how to
use a search engine?


My favorite, a real classic from rec.food.cooking:

"Can I make my own lasagne at home? How?"

That's it - the entire message. No hint as to whether the person was asking
about how to make the noodles from scratch, or the dish. The OP never
returned to clarify this, probably because he/she/it came under heavy (and
justly deserved) artillery fire within minutes of the message being posted.
The assumption was that even though every lasagna noodle package in the
universe contains a recipe, the person hadn't bothered to look, or do a web
search, or (heaven forbid) hire a private detective for assistance in
locating the nearest library.

Val wrote:

culled
And that, boys and girls, concludes the Tuesday afternoon mull and rant
program on wreck.gardens.........

[...polite applause...]

Is there a refreshments table set up here somewhere?

Ann wrote in
:

enigma expounded:

and if i have to cut back hard a lilac, is that best done
right after bloom? this thing is 15' tall with 5-6"
diameter trunks. i want it a bit shorter... like no more
than 8'. lee

Yes, wait til it blooms next spring. One caution, is it
sending up any suckers from the roots?

lots of suckers from the roots. i cut the ones that grow up
between the rock steps & on the garden bed side. the goats &
llamas eat any that sprout up on the pasture side of the
fence.
actually, come to think of it, i'm not sure if the suckers
are from the white or the purple... but both need to be
shorter. they're rather entwined where they are, & i'm pretty
sure they were originally planted there in the 1920s, but it
could have been as early as the mid-1800s...
do lilacs respond to layering as a propagation method?
lee

--
Question with boldness even the existence of god; because if
there be
one, he must more approve the homage of reason than that of
blindfolded
fear. - Thomas Jefferson

enigma expounded:

lots of suckers from the roots.

Good. I've seen old lilacs that are reduced to only one trunk, they
don't seem to survive being cut back severely (the farm I work on has
lilacs that hadn't been trimmed for over fifty years, two of them died
when the Squire cut them back against my wishes. He's the boss, but
sometimes I really wonder why he asks me).

Cut back each plant after they bloom - and take out the largest trunks
completely. They say to get an overgrown shrum under control to cut
back by one third over a three year period.

do lilacs respond to layering as a propagation method?

Yea, but why not just dig one of the suckers with roots and use that
to increase?
--
Ann, gardening in Zone 6a
South of Boston, Massachusetts
e-mail address is not checked
******************************

Ann wrote in
:

enigma expounded:
do lilacs respond to layering as a propagation method?

Yea, but why not just dig one of the suckers with roots and
use that to increase?

because i don't know which are from the white lilac. the
suckers don't (or haven't yet) bloom, probably because they're
so shaded by the huge overgrowth. there's several large lilacs
in the clump. the white is on the lower edge & the tallest. it
lost one trunk in the early spring snowstorm here. it has 2
major trunks left.
i did move a sucker from another lilac the previous owner
planted in dead shade. the main shrub fell over trying to get
to light... the poor sucker had almost no roots, but i kept it
well watered the first year & it's been growing. this year it
really added a lot of fullness & looks really good. hasn't
bloomed yet, but i figure it's been settling in. i think it
may bloom next spring. if not, well, it fills up a blank spot
by a stone wall nicely anyway.
lee